ABSTRACT
This chapter argues how the theory of viability compares with those offered by the past greats of sociological theory. The theory of sociocultural viability adopts the logic of functional explanation, which, following Arthur Stinchcombe, we define as an explanation "in which the consequences of some behavior or social arrangement are essential elements of the causes of that behavior." Functional explanations are vulnerable to the charge of positing an illegitimate teleology. Functional explanations continue to be employed—even if the label itself is now shunned—because, such a mode of analysis is necessary to explain how forms of social life cohere. To say that functional explanation is essential to account adequately for social stability is not to suggest that there is not much to criticize in the past practice of functional analysis. The cultural-functional theory shows that the paucity of propositions generated by functionalist approaches is not inherent in a functional mode of explanation.
